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EU to approve more banking data for US spooks

European home affairs ministers are today set to approve a transatlantic deal that will see them turn reams of private banking data over to US intelligence. The expected approval signals a remarkable diplomatic victory for Washington. The European Commission and the US had previously clashed over the Terrorist Finance Tracking …

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McMoo
FAIL

In return....

..... it's okay - the EU will be getting info on USA accounts in return.

Oh, we won't?

Fck you America!

Not Fred31
Black Helicopters

Neat sidestep of democracy

Today? One day before the European Parliament would have been required under the Lisbon Treaty to be allowed its say on the issue. What are the odds?

OffBeatMammal
Welcome

I for one welcome...

.... the various members of the 52nd State, formerly known as Europe, to the new Empire of the Americas.

Anonymous Coward
Grenade

european council multipoli incompetent

I really don't care that ``we'' supposedly don't have the capability to scrutinize mountains of data. It's our data, so if ``we'' want to extract intelligence ``we'' had better get the capability. Not outsource it to those notorious xenophobes yonder. Doubleplusgood of ``us'' to show ``our'' utter contempt for democracy, of course. Carry on government.

This post has been deleted by a moderator

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
Reply Icon

And US Capitalism

is without scruples of any description other than to destroy all foreign competitors is the patriotic thing to do. Except if they're Chinese, when it becomes "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Anonymous Coward
Grenade

US knows all our banking transactions.

Does this include the transactions of all european politicians, companies, leading entrepreneurs etc. Did it not occurr to them that this information could be very useful to the Americans and I'm not talking in terms of terrorism.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

ECHR is not an EU body

ECHR is not a body that answers to the EU, and certainly not to the EU Commssion. The right to privacy comes from ECHR Article 8, not THEIR (the EU) version of the right, or even the Data Protection legislation and they cannot claim 'National Security' because USA is not an applicable nation under ECHR privacy right.

EU Commission cannot give permission that protects SWIFT from national privacy rights under ECHR. It does not have the power to do so, anyone can sue SWIFT under ECHR.

I also want to know the real story here. There's nothing special about log analysis that makes it only possible in the US. So what's the real story? Who has what information on whom?

Bayleaf

No reciprocal agreement

"There is no reciprocal agreement for European intelligence agencies to mine US banking data."

Just the same as extradition then, still I am sure the Americans won't misuse this...

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

BACS & other local transfers

Has BACS data been opened to the US? Are internal UK bank transactions handed to the US for terrorism checking purposes?

The simple thing is that if they can check their DOMESTIC transfers then they can check their own SWIFT transfers. Otherwise you'd be handing all your data over for local transactions!

But I also bet that the UK hands over it's BACS data to the US like the lapdog it is. I bet they send details of all internal UK transactions, every one, bet you.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Not so fast..

Umm, don't forget that the data centre is now hosted in SWITZERLAND, and thus falls under Swiss banking and data protection laws. That means the EU can waffle as much as it wants, and it'll perfectly possible to get EU data handed over if the EU countries are indeed so unwise to let that industrial espionage continue without any trace of reciprocal agreements, but ..

.. I can't see one single bit of Swiss data coming out of this data centre, especially not after all that anti-Swiss marketing that the US has used to make Switzerland the black sheep (casually "forgetting" it's own creative solutions like Delaware).

The Swiss will need a lot of convincing before they will allow the US to harm their economy even more, so I personally don't think this is as a done deal as everyone is making it out to be. The trouble Google is having in Switzerland is a good indication that it's not going to be easy - and IMHO the Swiss are actually right.

It's just that the indoctrination by the Bush-Blair axis of evil has somehow made privacy a privilege rather than a right. You might want to think about why that is..

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
Reply Icon

Makes no difference

Switzerland has already said it will let EU citizens bank data be handed over if the EU approves it. I've already been told by BCV that my SWIFT transactions are monitored and they recommend using the Swiss domestic bank transfers instead, perhaps if I get the Swiss job next that will be possible. But it seems a shame if the only way to protect bank transaction data is to keep all your work in a single EU Country because the EU Commission WON'T DO IT'S FUCKING JOB YOU STUPID USELESS BUNCH OF LYING CRET.... excuse me, let my anger get the better of me.

So no warrant will happen, no evidence, no court will review it, no challenge will be made, instead the US will take whatever data it wants, and do whatever it wants to. The 'safeguard' is an EU official who will ask the US what its doing and if they confess to doing something wrong, he will use very stern words against them!

i.e. it's a travesty of EU rights. I damn well want to know what the real story is.

There's nothing special about SWIFT, we have our own bank transfers SEPA and from the job sites, I see we monitor those. So we can process those logs, and the claim is bogus.

So WTF is going on that you'd do this?

Anonymous Coward
Big Brother

Switzerland is not part of the EU

Switzerland is not part of the EU so I don't understand how this affects them? Perhaps it is getting at the data from source/destination of transactions rather than from SWIFT.

Anonymous Coward
Unhappy

Blair dirt

there are speculations that Bliar's craven lickspittle endorsement of US policy might have been something to do with "potentially embarrassing" financial transactions filtered out of the SWIFT database.

Given the over 50% of politicos are bent, and America has all the dirt, can we guarantee EU independence in the future?

TeeCee
Thumb Down
Reply Icon

Re: Blair dirt

"....can we guarantee EU independence in the future?"

Not unless there's a massive change from the current situation, no. There's never been any such thing as "EU independence", just a carve up of deals between a cosy coterie of national leaders and appointed eurocrats dancing to the tune played by whichever superpower has the most clout in the area under discussion.

The EU parliament is merely the world's most expensive rubber stamp with the word "Approved" written in reverse in relief on the flat end.

moiety

*Speechless*

Nope. Some speech has occurred to me: Fuck that. Fuck the US singly and collectively. And especially fuck the useless, pussy, know-nothing, waste of space tosspots that are given vast wads of our money to look after our interests...can't they see that they're selling THEMSELVES down the river:- and given the usual morality of politicians, they'll almost certainly be first to be on the pointy end of this.

Unbelievable.

Tom 38
WTF?

WTF

"The draft deal reportedly lowered the criteria for data to be handed over and allowed US authorities to export European banking data to third parties. "

Oh great, so not only the data being exported to the US, but they can outsource it to anywhere else?

It's alright though, I'm sure they will only use it for hunting terrorists (won't someone think of the children?) and in no way will it be used to look at trade tariffs. JIMMY HILL.

Tony Paulazzo
Happy

#6738277

>In a tacit admission that European intelligence agencies are incapable of keeping an eye out for suspicious transactions, today the European Council of Ministers planned to comply with US demands.<

Despite the fact that the single biggest terrorist atrocity happened there, even with their vast intelligence gathering / spying on everyone networks, they failed to keep their own cities safe (or, you know, inside job).

/heavy sarcasm: Oh, we're all so much safer now, thanks EA - er EU - er FU...

To the American Intelligence agency, you're really not!

John Smith 19
Thumb Down

The moral for terrorists is clear

Use a US bank in the US (or come bit of the caribbean) be *very* nice to your bank manager and William is your fathers brother. BM will think your a common or garden drug barron.

No reciprocity. No (apparent) abilty evn to process it ourselves (I'm sure there's meant to be some EU wide security body that's meant to deal with stuff like this).

Does anyone feel the US is acting remarkably like a spoilt child whose about to have their favourite toy taken away from them?

alain williams

Complain to the data protection registrar

Do it here:

https://forms.ico.gov.uk/data-protection-complaint.aspx

Lars
Go

Being an optimist.

I hope this is part of getting into the tax scum on both sides of the Atlantic. Information is power and things like that.

Stratman
Thumb Down

So, Germany abstained.

How brave of them.

MinionZero
Big Brother

This also seriously affects all businesses ...

What worries me is if this extends as far as business banking as well. (after all its easy to say some businesses could be funding terrorists (as well as organized crime) so we need to watch the business bank transfer part of deals as well). Because then it'll be no wonder why America wants access to this bank data. It would be automated spying on business dealings. With this data they can profile all bank transfers for companies as well as individuals. Which means America can watch every business deal between every company. So any company they are interested in, they can dig through all details of every deal they make with every other company. That's wide open to industrial espionage, something America has been guilty of against European companies in the past.

After all, America may well be on our side, but that don't change the fact their businesses are also our competitors and its been proven American spies have been used for industrial espionage. Their spies have allowed US companies to undercut EU companies to allow US companies to pitch for work for less than EU companies. When you know every deal a company makes, thats a huge amount of useful industrial espionage.

For example, "The Clinton administration has been accused of shifting U.S. intelligence assets from terrorism targets and toward economic targets to "level the playing field" for U.S. companies competing abroad" ... i.e.

Its called "Mixing business with spying"...

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/baltsun/access/49551716.html?dids=49551716:49551716&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Nov+01%2C+1996&author=Scott+Shane&pub=The+Sun&desc=Mixing+business+with+spying%3B+Secret+information+is+passed+routinely+to+U.S.+companies

Its no wonder spying is sometimes called the 2nd oldest profession for a reason. Throughout history spying has been used. So the fact that spying is so common in politics (and has been throughout history) therefore means I find it extremely unlikely that UK/EU officials don't foresee the dangers to European companies of this kind of move. So either they are utterly incompetent and ignorant beyond belief of how the data can be exploited or far more likely, they are corrupt and somehow personally gaining from giving so much data to America.

Something is seriously wrong for this to be allowed. So the news papers need to do a lot more digging on this, because it seriously looks like there is a hell of a shockingly corrupt story behind all this bank spying move.

Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
Paris Hilton

I predict...

a lot more complaints from MerkinLand about state aid for Airbus, I wonder where they are getting their information.

Paris, who has more brain power than the entire Fuckwit, arsehole, expenses grabbing European Commission.

kain preacher

Making eaiser

So now it's more convenient then wait for random CD to show up on to the transit system . Hey dont get mad at America. All we did is ask, but it's you government that said yes with out getting any thing in return.

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